US loses 124,000 more jobs

Friday 4 January 2002 00:00 BST

AMERICA'S labour market continued to shed jobs in December but at a slightly slower pace than economists had expected. The unemployment rate rose to 5.8% in December as the US economy lost 124,000 jobs, led by continued haemorrhaging in the manufacturing sector. The service sector and government added jobs to offset some of the manufacturing declines.

One surprise in the data from the US Department of Labor headed by Elaine Chao, was a sharp rise of 0.5% in average hourly wages. The December losses were less than half the job losses suffered in November.